Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Scribbly by Sheldon Mayer 1948

So. Sheldon Mayer. I'm not sure when I first encountered Mayer's work. There are two possibilities. The first being his Sugar and Spike comics reprinted in DC Digests in the early 80's or a Red Tornado and Scribbly story reprinted in the Alan Light B&W reprint of All -American Comics #16 I bought in a used bookstore around the same time. At any rate, as a kid, his work struck a chord with me.

Mayer created his semi-autobiographical creation Scribbly in 1936 for Dell Comics and moved it to National (DC) in 1939 when he became an editor. In 1948 Scribbly was given his own title, no doubt because of the success of Archie at the time. Scribbly's own title started off strong but gradually began to resemble most of the other teen comic books of the period as published by DC. Scribbly ended in 1952, but his best-remembered creation Sugar & Spike began in 1956 and lasted until the 80's.